In general, the refrigerator cools down an inside thereof by repeating a refrigerating cycle in which refrigerant is compressed, condensed, and evaporated, for fresh conservation of food stored therein for a time period.
The refrigerator is provided with a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve, and an evaporator. The compressor boosts low temperature/low pressure gas refrigerant to high temperature/high pressure gas refrigerant. The condenser condenses the refrigerant introduced thereto from the compressor by using outdoor air. The expansion valve has a diameter smaller than a diameter of other part, for dropping a pressure of the refrigerant introduced thereto from the condenser. The evaporator absorbs heat an inside of the refrigerator as the refrigerant passed through the expansion valve evaporates in a lower pressure state.
The structure and operation of a general side by side type refrigerator will be described with reference to the attached drawings.
Referring to FIG. 1, the refrigerator is provided with a freezing chamber 1 for receiving most of cold air heat exchanged at the evaporator 4 to maintaining an inside temperature thereof at approx. −18° C., and a refrigerating chamber for receiving rest of the cold air heat exchanged at the evaporator 4 for maintaining an inside temperature thereof at approx. 0˜7° C. The freezing chamber 1 and the refrigerating chamber 2 is arranged side by side on left and right sides in parallel.
The freezing chamber 1 and the refrigerating chamber 2 are partitioned with a barrier 3, wherein the barrier 3 has a hole 3a in an upper part of rear thereof for supplying the cold air heat exchanged at the evaporator 4 to the refrigerating chamber, and a hole 3b in a lower part thereof for supplying cold air circulated through the refrigerating chamber 2 to be heated to a relatively high temperature to the freezing chamber 1 again. The hole 3a for supplying the cold air to the refrigerating chamber is provided with a damper (not shown) on an inside thereof for controlling flow of the cold air introduced into the refrigerating chamber 2.
Referring to FIGS. 2A and 2B, there are a fan 6 over the evaporator 4 for forced circulation of the cold air cooled at the evaporator to the freezing chamber 1, and a motor for driving the fan. There is a cold air passage 10 compartmentalized by a partition plate 7 in front of the evaporator 4 for separating the freezing chamber from a space the evaporator 4 is mounted therein.
The partition plate 7 has a two layered plate structure with a front plate 7a and a rear plate 7b, between which the cold air passage 10 is formed.
The front plate 7a has a plurality of cold air outlets 11 in communication with the freezing chamber, and there are cold air inlets 13 under the partition plate 7 for introduction of the cold air circulated through the freezing chamber 1 to absorb heat into the evaporator 4 again, and a machinery room 5 in a lower part of rear of the freezing chamber 1.
Upon applying power to the refrigerator in a state food is stuffed in the freezing chamber 1 and the refrigerating chamber 2 of the refrigerator, as the compressor in the machinery room is operated in response to a control signal from a controller (not shown), a heat exchange environment of the evaporator 4 is controlled by the refrigerating cycle described before.
Accordingly, the cold air passed through the evaporator 4 is cooled down by means of heat exchange at the evaporator, and discharged to the cold air passage 10 on the freezing chamber side by operation of the fan 6. The discharged cold air is introduced into the freezing chamber 1 through the cold air outlets 11, and a portion of which is introduced into the refrigerating chamber 2 through the holes 3a. Thereafter, the cold air circulated through the freezing chamber 1 and the refrigerating chamber 2 to absorb heat is introduced into the evaporator 4 through the cold air inlets 13 again and heat exchanges at the evaporator 4, thereby forming a cold air circulating system.
As has been described, because the related art refrigerator has a structure in which the evaporator 4 is mounted only on the freezing chamber side, and a portion of the cold air having heat exchanged at the evaporator 4 is introduced into the refrigerating chamber 2 through the cold air passage 10 on the freezing chamber side, the related art refrigerator has the following problems.
First, since the compressor and the fan are required to come into operation again for temperature control of either the freezing chamber 1 or the refrigerating chamber 2, if an inside temperature of any one of the freezing chamber 1 and the refrigerating chamber 2 fails to meet a preset temperature, unnecessary consumption of power is caused.
For an example, if the temperature of the refrigerating chamber 2 fails to meet the preset temperature even if the temperature of the freezing chamber 1 meets the preset temperature, it is required to put the compressor and the fan into operation, to cool down the temperature of the refrigerating chamber for meeting the preset temperature of the refrigerating chamber. In this instance, since the cold air is also, supplied to the freezing chamber 1 unnecessarily, of which temperature condition is met already, power is consumed unnecessarily.
Second, there has been shortage of cold air passed through the evaporator 4 and supplied to the refrigerating chamber 2 to cause a problem of relatively lower cooling rate of the refrigerating chamber 2 than the cooling rate of the freezing chamber 1.
That is, even if the refrigerating chamber 2 is set to a temperature higher than the freezing chamber 1, the cooling rate is poor because of shortage of the flow.
Third, the thickness of the evaporator 4 mounted in rear of the freezing chamber 1 reduces a volume of the freezing chamber, causing inefficient use of the space.